I have already completed two AP tests out of the four I’m taking this week. I admit that I’m a little bit exhausted from sitting in a chair for three consecutive hours to take a test, but I also must say that I made the most out of my testing time. I tried to have fun, and frankly, I did.
To be honest, one of my most important goals for this week is to stay positive in the midst of a typically stressful environment. The last thing you need is to have stress or fatigue bog you down and clutter your headspace and mood. You won’t have a good chance of doing well if that happens, either. Sure, I’m not the biggest fan of test taking, but I tried to stay optimistic. If you’re in the theater (our testing site) for the test, you’re also going to miss class, so you may as well maximize its enjoyability! After all, it doesn’t seem too enticing to sign up for a test and then act like a sucker through it. Most people do that, but I don’t like the idea of acting negative towards tests.
Both tests I took were fun. Before and after both tests, I met a couple of my friends, who were really nice to spot because outside of clubs, we don’t share common classes. Additionally, I tried to savor the content when I could when I wasn’t in too much of a time crunch.
Not everyone in our school had the opportunity to take the AP Calculus BC exam, so I demonstrated my knowledge of the content that I frequently practiced in class and savored the numbers. At the same time I was writing brief solutions to the free-response questions (FRQs), I mentally compared each question to the ones we’ve practiced in our class mock and past released exams. I thought the problems were relatively standard but cool to do. The MCQ calculator portion was probably the hardest, but I still managed to get through. The good news was that even if I was struggling on something, I calmed down and thought through my ideas thoroughly. Even if I wasn’t able to answer every question correctly, I’m confident that I got a 5, and the problems were cool.
Today I took the AP English Language & Composition exam, which surprisingly, my English teacher regarded as “bullshit” a few days before. I mostly agree. All of us must admit that College Board is a business that makes thousands of dollars solely from AP tests, and these tests aren’t even going to matter in the long run. Even if a 3 may affect college applications, it will not affect your chances for a good job in your career. Regardless of the merit or basis of the test, I still tried to take it as easy as possible, while still doing my best. Before I went into the testing area, I was delighted to see Ms. D (my English teacher) and gave her a fist bump, which elevated my mood.
As for the test itself, I liked the prose of the passages and the free-response prompts. Honestly, I may have checked the clock on the top of my Bluebook screen a *little* too much, but it was a good reminder for me to pick up the pace halfway, as I barely finished all of the questions in time. Nevertheless, a positive mood bolstered my reading comprehension in the test and especially for the essays. Amazingly, I wrote a lot more than usual on the essays. I switched my mindset from thinking that it is a writing chore to a way of stepping into the conversation of others. I spent more time writing than planning – I discovered (not for the first time) that I write better when I don’t do extensive planning. For me, writing is a way of coherent thinking, and having that intermediate step may be more useful when you have more complex ideas to deliver (e.g the synthesis question), but not so much simpler ones (rhetorical analysis and argument). For smaller essays, I like to just dig in and write, especially because I deviate from my plans if I had any. I was finally able to unleash the inner writer that has remained dormant during an actual language exam.
I think I got at least a 4 on the AP English exam, which I should be satisfied with considering that had I taken the same test a month ago, I would get no more than a 3.
Overall, I liked both tests, but enjoyed calculus slightly more, just because I had more confidence in the material. For AP spanish and physics, I’ll have to study more but hopefully, I can make the most out of missed class time by demonstrating what I know on these exams.
“What could be more fun than showing what you’ve learned on an exam?”
-Mr. K, my AP Calculus BC teacher